Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

A professional, pragmatic presidency

The start of Denmark’s presidency was arguably not 1 January, the official launch-date, but 8-9 December, the occasion of a fractious European Council. As hopes of a 27-member deal on economic rules began to fade because of the UK’s position, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, recently elected as Denmark’s prime minister, intervened in the hope of saving a deal – only to be told by France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy: “You’re an out, a small out, and you’re new. We don’t want to hear from you.” The country that would shortly be tasked with minding the European Union’s business had been told to mind its own business.

To take over an EU fractured and dominated by the eurozone crisis and by the centre-right’s emphasis on austerity was a difficult challenge for a country that was not a member of the 17-member eurozone and for a government that was newly elected and one of just four governments in the EU led by centre-left politicians. It also suggested that Denmark, whose presidencies of the Council of Ministers in 1993 and 2002 were ambitious and successful, might struggle to improve its record.

Thorning-Schmidt’s government has achieved some successes. Ambition was not much mentioned as a feature of the Danish presidency. The most common assessments are variations on one given by Maroš Šefcovic, the European commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, who described the Danish presidency as “hardworking, dynamic, practical and delivered a lot”.

The verdict might get kinder, by comparison with what comes next. With months of crucial negotiations on reforms of the EU’s budget ahead, Denmark’s successor – Cyprus – will need to show the same qualities. The concern must be that others will echo Ingeborg Grässle, a centre-right German MEP, who told Thorning-Schmidt during a debate on Tuesday: “I’m going to miss you, I’m going to miss your efficiency as negotiators.”

Grässle negotiated the revisions to the EU’s financial regulation. In other economic areas – covering fiscal rules and the financial sector – Denmark will be disappointed that its progress was not rewarded with last-minute deals with the European Parliament.

Well prepared

The professionalism of the Danish diplomatic corps and of its civil servants has long been known.

Assiduous preparation was evident in the dossier with the greatest long-term significance, the multi-annual financial framework (MFF), which will set the EU’s budget for 2014-20. Ivailo Kalfin, a Bulgarian Socialist who is one of the Parliament’s co-negotiators on the MFF, said the Danes had done well in “streamlining the debate” and “creating the basis for future agreement”. It is an assessment echoed by others, though the trickiest part – talking money – lies ahead.

According to Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen, Denmark’s permanent representative, “at one point, we considered adding figures to the negotiating box”, the document that sets out the main issues and options for negotiators – but the Danes then, pragmatically, nipped their own ambition in the bud.

Danish vision

Keeping dossiers moving forward was a hallmark of the presidency. The Danes are relaxed about the question of whether they left any imprint, in the shape of their own vision. “We realised that there shouldn’t be grand visions that would not have been taken seriously,” says Tranholm-Mikkelsen, reflecting the characteristics of the presidency, of many of its ministers (see opposite page) – and, arguably, of the rotating presidency as an institution.

Fact File

HOW THEY PERFORMED...

Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Denmark’s prime minister, has been calling for growth-promoting measures to be combined with fiscal consolidation as the response to the economic crisis since the start of her country’s presidency of the Council of Ministers.

She hailed a deal at last week’s summit on an €120 billion growth compact as a “light in the darkness”. But the credit for the deal on the growth compact belongs more to the arrival of François Hollande as president of France. Like any leader from the country that holds the rotating presidency, Thorning-Schmidt suffered from the diminished role left by the creation in 2010 of a full-time president of the European Council.

While holding the presidency of the Council of Ministers can often provide national leaders with a boost in domestic politics, Thorning-Schmidt has seen support for her Social Democrats fall to its lowest level ever, 15.9%. This is partly because of an unpopular tax reform. Her plans to use a successful presidency to launch a referendum on two of Denmark’s opt-outs from EU policies – on justice and home affairs and defence – have been put on hold as the eurozone crisis has convinced Danes that this is not the moment for deeper European integration.

Margrethe Vestager’sstewardship of the EU’s council of finance ministers can be judged as solid, though it did not quite live up to the ambitious goals Denmark had set itself at the turn of the year.

Perhaps Denmark’s economy minister’s greatest legacy was what she did not do. From the very beginning she was unwilling to commit her country to an EU-wide financial-transaction tax. When she led calls to explore alternatives, it slowed down any momentum that remained for a positive decision by late spring, an objective that Germany had set.

One of her last acts was to declare the idea officially dead and to make way for a smaller group of countries to go it alone under ‘enhanced co-operation’.On other issues in Vestager’s field, Denmark managed to get member states to agree on legislation relating to credit-rating agencies, bank capital requirements and the package of stricter fiscal rules known as the two-pack. But Denmark’s position outside the eurozone meant that Vestager’s influence on economic and financial affairs was often only marginal and she remained a spectator as the group of 17 tried to get to grips with the crisis.

Nicolai Wammen, Denmark’s Europe minister, has had a good presidency. The affable 41-year-old had until last year been seen primarily as a local politician whose career with the Social Democrats was firmly anchored in Århus, his home for much of his life. But the EU’s General Affairs Council, until recently a bit of a backwater to which many governments would send their EU ambassadors rather than ministers, has gained in importance as a preparatory body for the European Council and as the venue for negotiations between the member states on the EU’s annual budget and on the multi-annual financial framework (MFF).

Denmark’s presidency came in a critical period for the MFF negotiations, and the government received praise from other member states for its solid work on the matter. MEPs, meanwhile, were happy because Wammen invited them along to formal and informal meetings of the GAC for briefings on the MFF talks, and to feed the Parliament’s concerns back to the ministers.

All this ensured that the boyish Wammen became one of the main faces of the Danish presidency in Brussels, prompting more than a few diplomats, officials and MEPs to predict a bright future for him.

Denmark’s climate and energy minister, Martin Lidegaard, put an agreement on the energy-efficiency directive at the heart of his priorities for the presidency.

But the issue was so sensitive that ministers could agree only a ‘provisional’ mandate for negotiations in April – a mandate that was far removed from MEPs’ position, which would have taken the EU to its 20% goal. By May, it looked like work on the directive would be shelved until 2013. Panic set in.In the end, a deal was reached at the last moment – no small feat given the degree of resistance from member states including Germany and the UK. That there was an agreement can be attributed to the quiet persistence of Lidegaard and his team and the willingness of MEPs to compromise.

As a presidency, Denmark was happy with this result. But as a country, the final outcome is far less ambitious than many wanted to see. Environmental campaigners grumbled that Denmark had saved face at the expense of policy.

Still, Lidegaard was probably right when he said that the presidency had managed to get “a more ambitious directive than anyone would have dreamt of only a couple of months ago.”

Mette Gjerskov, Denmark’s agriculture and fisheries minister, cut an amiable figure and her enthusiasm and openness initially gave heart to campaigners who hoped she would deliver on her ambition to make the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) greener than under the European Commission’s proposal.

But under the chairmanship of this life-long agronomist, the Commission’s proposed greening measures were progressively weakened. By the end, campaigners were saying that the Danish presidency had allowed negotiations to veer toward the lowest common denominator, with the result that the revised CAP might be even less green than its predecessor.

In the second council formation that she chaired, on fisheries, Gjerskov was successful in her bid to get a council mandate for reform of the common fisheries policy (CFP) before the end of the presidency. But here too there was disappointment for campaigners, as the Council’s position eases requirements for fisheries on maximum sustainable yield levels.

Gjerskov had two dossiers that have been notoriously unsusceptible to reform. The question posed by reformers, though, is whether Denmark compromised too much too quickly.

Even if Denmark had no grand vision, it had its own agenda – primarily, to make the EU greener. It wanted, for example, to pave the way to a greener Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); but the new CAP that is emerging will be less prescriptive and more “à la carte” than it wanted. Similarly, the position of the Council of Ministers on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) now talks merely of sustainable fishing “where possible”.

But at least it can feel it has secured an energy-efficiency directive that is stronger than seemed likely earlier.

This will not be judged a great reforming presidency, but perhaps those are in any case a thing of the past since the advent of a permanent president of the European Council, which limits the remit of the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers.

In two core areas of EU policy – the euro and the Schengen zone of borderless travel – the limits of the presidency and the Danish presidency in particular were evident. As a non-eurozone country, it could be little more than be a bystander in debate about the eurozone.

The Schengen issue spoilt the Danish government’s good record on managing justice and home affairs issues and maintaining good relations with the European Parliament. On 7 June, home affairs ministers decided on crucial changes to a Commission proposal on the Schengen area of borderless travel. Those changes deprived MEPs of a role in shaping the mechanism used to monitor member states’ compliance with Schengen rules, predictably triggering outrage among MEPs of all political colours.

The Danes, as those chairing the meeting at which the decision was taken, became the fall guys for a move toward inter-governmentalism that was agreed by all 27 member states. The suspension by MEPs of all ongoing negotiations on home affairs with the Council was good political theatre, but it missed this point.

To be consistent, the MEPs would have to maintain their boycott of justice and home affairs negotiations with the rotating presidency now that the Danes have handed over to the Cypriots, but that is most unlikely.

In retrospect, the lasting impression of the presidency may be shaped less by the agreements reached than by the mood music, a point hinted at by Thorning-Schmidt when she told the European Parliament that “we have tried to live up to that obligation [to deliver results]…so that Europe after the past gloom and pessimism can again see a period of growth”.

The mood now is not as dark as it was. The Danish presidency has played its part in creating a more upbeat, less dissonant background music.